Jacqueline and Neal

How We Met: In high school I had a teacher who was a mentor to me and he and his family lived in my neighborhood. I would go over there on weekends to hang out. Neal happened to have been best friends with my teacher’s oldest son. I would see him there almost every weekend but we never even acknowledged each other.

Then, a few years later on his 21st birthday, I saw him outside of the usual setting and we just clicked. He pursued me through Facebook and text message and took me out on our first date. He took me to Rita’s ices and then we walked the boardwalk for hours. We hit it off right away and our first date lasted over 8 hours. Now, over two years later, we are engaged!

how they asked: Exactly two years and two months after our first date, Neal took me back to the boardwalk where we had our first date. He was in work clothes and I was with a friend so he tried to make it seem like it wasn’t coming but I had this gut feeling that it was. He got a “call from his boss” and had to go back to his car. My friend and I sat on the bench and talked until he came back. While waiting, a “stranger” (who really was a friend of his I never met), asked to take our picture for a school project.

I said sure and he took the photo. He asked if I wanted to see it and when I looked into the camera, I saw in the background that Neal was on one knee. I turned around and Neal along with a bunch of his musically talented friends were behind us. Neal then proceeded to narrate our love story with snippets of love songs. I was extremely impressed with all the time and effort he put into the proposal and I was trying my best not to ugly cry.

After he finished singing and reviewing how we fell in love, he got down on his knee and asked me to marry him and of course I said “YES!”. The text to the proposal can be found here.